1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a semiconductor wafer, a semiconductor device and a method of manufacturing the semiconductor device, and particularly to a semiconductor wafer having an interconnection extending from a pad on a semiconductor device across to a dicing line, and a semiconductor device formed from that semiconductor wafer and a method of manufacturing the semiconductor device.
2. Description of the Background Art
FIG. 16 is a top view showing a conventional semiconductor wafer. A wafer test is conducted with wafer testing probes 4 applied to wire-bonding pads 2 in the semiconductor integrated circuits 1a. FIG. 17 is a sectional view of the semiconductor wafer 1 shown in FIG. 16. After the wafer test is finished, referring to FIG. 18, the wafer is cut along the dicing line 6 so that the semiconductor integrated circuits 1a are separated into chips. FIG. 19 and FIG. 20 respectively correspond to FIG. 17 and FIG. 18, which show application of an insulating film 9 for protecting active regions on the semiconductor integrated circuits 1a. After separating the semiconductor integrated circuits 1a as chips, wires (not shown) connected to the wire-bonding pads 2 of the semiconductor integrated circuits 1a are bonded.
When the wafer testing probes 4 come into contact with the wire-bonding pads 2, they cause damage 5 to the wire-bonding pads 2. Recently, the wire-bonding pads 2 have been increasingly miniaturized to reduce the size of the semiconductor integrated circuits 1a and to increase the ratio of the active regions in the semiconductor integrated circuits 1a. Accordingly, due to the miniaturization of the semiconductor integrated circuits 1a, the bonding wires are likely to be connected to the damaged parts of the wire-bonding pads 2, which will cause poor connection between the wire bonding pads 2 and the bonding wires.
FIG. 21 shows a section of a conventional semiconductor wafer 1 for preventing the inferior connection. The wafer test is conducted with the wafer testing probes 4 applied only on the wafer testing pads 3 within the dicing line 6. After the wafer test is finished, referring to FIG. 22, it is cut along the dicing line 6 and the semiconductor integrated circuits 1a are thus separated as chips. FIG. 23 and FIG. 24 correspond to FIG. 21 and FIG. 22, respectively, which show the application of the insulating film 9 for protecting active regions on the semiconductor integrated circuits 1a.
As shown in FIG. 22, however, the top surfaces and the cut sections of the wafer testing pad remainders 3a are exposed. This causes the problem that substances which corrode aluminum (Al), such as water, potassium, magnesium, etc., invade the wire-bonding pads 2 from the wafer testing pad remainders 3a to cause aluminum corrosion of the wire-bonding pads 2.